Kobayashi Keeps Toyota On Top in Second Practice

Kamui Kobayashi kept Toyota Gazoo Racing at the top of the Hypercar leaderboard as the Japanese driver paced Friday’s second Free Practice session for the 6 Hours of Fuji.

Kobayashi shaved 1.2 seconds off the previous best lap of the event with a time of 1:29.948 in the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid that he shares with Jose Maria Lopez and Mike Conway.

The Toyota WEC team principal was the only driver to break the 90-second barrier during the 90-minute afternoon run, which took place under grey skies but without rain.

Brendon Hartley went second-quickest to seal Toyota’s second consecutive one-two result of the weekend, putting the Japanese team in good stead for Saturday’s qualifying.

Hartley produced a 1:30.173 aboard the car in which Sebastien Buemi led the opening session.

The third-placed No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 driven by Loic Duval ended up 1.246 seconds away from Kobayashi’s benchmark.

Peugeot’s entries were split by the Alpine A480 Gibson of Nicolas Lapierre, who registered a 1:31.362 just after the half-hour point to jump ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne.

JOTA finished first and second in the LMP2 class, with Antonio Felix da Costa setting the pace in the British team’s No. 38 Oreca 07 Gibson, closely followed by Ed Jones in the No. 28 sister car.

Da Costa reeled off a 1:32.351, removing three-tenths of a second from Nicklas Nielsen’s earlier attempt that topped the FP1 charts.

Nielsen settled for fourth in the afternoon session, behind United Autosports driver Filipe Albuquerque.

Ferrari once again sandwiched Porsche in the GTE-Pro stakes as the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo completed a sweep of the day’s Free Practice sessions.

Alessandro Pier Guidi clocked a 1:37.682 in the early stages to take a lead that he would maintain until the end.

His closest challenge came from Gianmaria Bruni, who drove the No. 91 Porsche 911 RSR-19 to within two-tenths of the reigning world champion.

A third one-two result of the session occurred in GTE-Am, as Iron Dames and Iron Lynx – both run by the same team – came through in first and second.

Michelle Gatting went quickest on a time of 1:39.170 in the No. 85 Iron Dames Ferrari, ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella in the teammate No. 60 car.

Marco Sorensen took third for Aston Martin outfit TF Sport, ahead of AF Corse’s Davide Rigon.

No major incidents occurred during the second practice session, capping a day of clean running on track.

A brief Full Course Yellow period occurred in the last couple of minutes due to debris on the racing line at the second corner.

Free Practice 3 takes place at 10:20 a.m. local time on Saturday (9:20 p.m. ET on Friday).